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Why a tattoo?
When I arrived at the ‘Tattooed, Tattooists’ exhibition at the Musée du
Quai Branly in Paris, tattoos seemed like the craziest thing you could do to
your skin. Plus I have an uncle
who regretted for life the tiny anchor he had tattooed to his chest.
What motivates a person to clog up the skin with an indelible mark,
often painful to create and very difficult to ever remove?
This prejudice of mine did not dissolve when I saw the painful tools used to
inflict the indelible inks onto the skin.
History
Human beings have been having their skin tattooed since before recorded
time. In 4,450 BC, Ötzi, a man
from the Chalcolithic period, was found preserved in the ice lands of the Alps
decorated with 57 tattoos.
Sado-masochism
The process of making a tattoo does have resemblances to the practice of
self-harm. Someone practising self-harm is really an effort to bring to the
surface a deep and hidden pain of an emotional experience. This pain is then
brought visually to the skin so that it can be felt and seen, like a wound, and
left as a memory for the pain to heal, like scar tissue.
Some tattoos are actually images or statements telling of inner pain,
broken hearts, failed love stories and the exhibition has examples of some of
the early tools used for making tattoos.
These tools were known even to raise blood, such as needles, combs and
stamps in which to embed the skin with ink.
Doctor Jean Lacassagne kept a record of many examples of different
tattoos on his interns. Some
examples spoke of broken hearts:
“I loved. I suffered. Now I hate”
Another recorded tattoos that spoke of the wounds caused by love and
women:
“Women tear the heart and rip up the skin”
As well as the wounds caused by Cupid’s arrow, broken heart images, and
images of love and hate run amok.
There are also images to suggest the pains and dangers just of living,
making a tattoo also a trophy to boast of such dangers in life, which had been
survived. For instance
“Children of misfortune” tells the tale of a difficult childhood and the
symbol of an eye on the back of a neck with the words “Watch out” carries the
message that environment that has never felt safe but by watching out, they
have survived.
Just as with self-harm, when a feeling of inner pain is brought to the
surface to be seen, so too with the tattoo, where it is visually shared and
brought to light with the purpose to heal, literally bringing the inner pain to
the surface and sharing it in a cathartic way.
Sutra
Another purpose of the tattoo is to express a fundamental truth reached
by the person on their journey. In
India the word for this is ‘sutra’, meaning the insight or clarity a person has
gained from their life experiences.
This word in Sanskrit means ‘thread’, which is also interestingly used
by surgeons in the sewing up of wounds (suture)
This mysterious thread, therefore suggests that a tattoo is rather like
a tapestry of a growing consciousness of a person’s life and shows people the
revelations they have had, like a roadmap of their life, expressing their current
state of consciousness and thoughts and feelings.
“Friends until death”
Social Exclusion
However, not all the tattooed people in history have chosen to be
tattooed. Tattoos can also be the marks intended to demean and derogate a
person’s sense of self by the ruling ranks of the society.
Millions of people were tattooed with digits during the period of Nazi
concentration camps, and the tattoo itself turns the human being into a mere
labelled object. Not only was this
a sort of psychological abuse, by invading the sacred space of a person, but
also it excluded the person from society, thereby depriving the individual its
natural need of society in an interdependent nature.
During the Algerian war, women who were violated or forced into
prostitution were also marked on the face permanently, having the effect of
permanently excluding them from society in the future.
Throughout history, just as cattle were marked, slaves were also often
marked by a tattoo, as proof of ownership.
Condemnation
Many prisoners were allowed to have the tattooing tools in prison, and
so this self-expression could persist there. However a tattoo often meant that you belonged to this
deviant group. Therefore prison
offenders were marked permanently as asocial beings and ostracized for life.
During the time of Stalin, 1927 to 1953, Sergei Vasiliev archived and
recorded many of the motifs and codes which signified anti-establishment
thinkers who were also imprisoned for their alternative thinking. For instance, the ‘devil’s head’ image
represented someone hostile to Stalin’s harsh government.
On discovery of the meanings of this underground language, Stalin, in
retaliation, had such tattoos removed form his prisoners before putting them to
death.
Truth
Others took the side against dishonesty and social injustice, such as
Auguste Formain, who had the degradation of Dreyfus tattooed onto his
back. His tattoo was a heartfelt
statement against false accusation, and akin to the spirit of Emile Zola, who
had also fought for the freeing of Dreyfus, famously saying ‘the truth is out
there and no-one can put an end to it’
Veneration
Tattooing had a rebellious nature, and like a wall for graffiti, the
skin was a place for self- expression.
But tattoos were also found on the skin of soldiers and army members, to
express pride of country and establishment. Flags, symbols of conquest, and medals would be drawn onto
the skin. Sailors both of the navy
and the merchant navy would tell of their adventures and story in the form of
marks and symbols. Achievements in
life were recorded, such as the eagle, representing the conquering army, the lion’s
head, representing power or the tiger and skull symbolising dangers faced on
the person’s life path.
Bridge to the other World
All of American Indian tribes from the Inuit’s to the Cree have
practiced tattooing. In the same
way that Egyptians believed that little objects and amulets were needed to take
one to the after world, it was also believed that tattooed images would
accompany a person through death and help them in the beyond.
Just as votive body parts are offerings in prayer, in the hope of healing
of someone or some part of the body, it was not uncommon for tattoos to be
drawn with the same motive. Like
picturing and wish fulfilment, the tattoo would be a method of getting healing
or help. Sometimes the breasts had tattoos put on them to improve the lactation
process, for instance.
Hierarchy
Some tattoos were marks of respect and position in a society. Maori chiefs and warriors were given
certain marks that no one else was allowed. In Polynesia, many warrior faces were tattooed, as masks of
defiance, proving their value and evidence of rites of passage they had
succeeded in. In Samoa, some
tattoos were results of a mandatory initiation rite given to all youth.
Engagements or marriage
Some marks were symbolic of marriage and the person being the territory
of a partner. In Japan, a
courtesan had a tattoo marked on her to symbolise an engagement. Once the lover’s passions had been
consummated, the tattoos were effaced using a substance called moxa.
Magic
In Thailand, the tattooed motifs were called yantra, and functioned as a
talisman: there to protect the bearer against bullets or illness. The tattooist’s art was an incantation,
a visual blessing of protection.
However the use of such a good luck charm began to wane away when
missionaries encouraged the wearing of clothes and exhorted men to cover their
bodies.
Cleansing
In China the fortuitous dragon form was used to bring good luck. One monk claimed that the process of tattooing
had helped him to take a safer path in life. Now 51 years old he had been a monk 26 years, claiming that
his previous life had been fraught with danger and that it was the act of
tattooing that had guided him down his rightful path.
Medicinal
During the upper Neolithic period it was also believed that tattooing
could treat osteoarthritis.
Wonder
Christian missionaries prohibited tattoos, however the art continued to
thrive despite this ban. Although
the colonised world abandoned tattooing, Marco Polo, in the 13th
century, brought examples of tattoos via his travelling expeditions, through the
capture of prisoners and among his itineraries.
Captain Cook also returned with tattooed images. In 1776, one of his team John Webber had
drawn and illustrated a tattooed man, causing wonder.
And when Joseph Kabie came back his travels totally tattooed, on his
death he had to be cremated just to prevent people stealing his body in order
to sell his skin.
Sideshows
In the nineteenth century tattooing became an entertainment piece in
circuses and sideshows. It was the
cause of fascination. Sword
swallowers, fire-eaters, lion tamers, telepathists, and other daring circus
acts were often tattooed head to toe.
Art form
Tattooing became a form of decoration. Famous tattoo artist Charlie Wagner covered the skin of his
wife with tattoos, her skin a canvas on which to proudly manifest his talents
as a tattoo artist.
In Japan, the process is called ‘Irezumi’, the ‘ire’ meaning to
introduce, the ‘sumi’ meaning ink.
The styles in Japan were adopted by America and there the art form
grew. The artist Felix Leu then rejected
any distinction between academic art and popular art.
The body as storybook or
gallery
Often the tattoo artists are considered the friends of the individual
tattooed and the connection means more than the actual tattoo. People willingly
make their skin a gallery wall, happy to lovingly exhibit the skilled artwork
of the tattooists.
The skin becomes a book or journal to record life’s journey, a roadmap
of life. Some people have been tattooed by as many as 170 tattoo artists, and
are nearly completely covered in tattoo.
Since the time that Samuel Reilly invented the electric tattoo machine
in 1908, methods of tattooing have changed and evolved. The first big convention
was in Huston in 1976 and now tattooing demands an apprenticeship of five years
before one is considered to be professional.
Reverence
In an effort to give tattooing the justified reverence it deserves, the
organisers of the exhibition have also included the work of some of its
pioneers and heroes who have evolved the art, and some thirty tattoo artists in
the world are showing their work, some of it shown on prosthetic body parts.
Yet, what is fascinating about this exhibition is that one comes away
with something else.
This exhibition not only succeeds at bringing an art so often left on
the fringes to centre stage, but cleverly reveals and marvels at the capacity
for individuals in society to use art to survive difficulties and adversities
in life, how, throughout each historical epoque, which is so uniquely
challenging, each individual manages to adapt itself to the time and the art of
tattooing mutates and caters to social changes and needs.
Always marginalised and regarded as outside art, with artworks destined
to go to the grave, the tattoo artists never the less have flourished and it is
this very fact that the exhibition celebrates, giving the art of tattooing the
reverence and status it has always deserved.
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